The future is now. With the rapid growth of smart homes across the world, it’s only a matter of time until every house has at least one smart home feature. A smart home is the new face of luxury lifestyle. There is always a sense of posh whenever you find out your neighbor lives in a smartphone with all those fancy gadgets. Yes, technology makes our lives simpler, but should we let it take full control over our households? That’s what we’re here to find out.
A New Home
You’ve seen those sci-fi movies where houses are filled with talking appliances, holograms, and robots, right? Well, those things inside the home are slowly becoming into a reality. Ever since the introduction of smart homes, real estate, designing, and housing businesses have definitely changed. It wasn’t just about interior/exterior designs or how comfortable the spaces were anymore; people are now looking for homes with a built-in Internet of Things (IoT) to go along with smart home appliances.
We currently live in an age where you don’t need a key to enter the house, doors that can lock with a voice command, a TV that automatically turns off when nobody is watching, a stove with a robot hand that copies the exact recipe based on a Google search, swimming pools automatically draining or self-cleaning, and a bathtub where you can adjust the water temperature with swipe controls.
Even dogs get to have their own smart home tech too. No more hassle of having to fill up the doggie bowl or leash your dog while it’s taking a dump outside your home. Speaking of dump, there are smart home devices that clean those too. Miraculous.
People love automatic on anything and that’s why tech companies keep on innovating in order to help us sit back and relax while their devices do everything for us.
Sure, you’ll need at least a decent ISP for Alexa to take control of smart home devices but soon, smart homes will instead use 5G that is independent of ISP connections.
What This Means for Home Security
Obviously, the more advanced homes get, the same goes for your family’s safety. Smart home security tools such as real-time HD live streaming surveillance and scanners make breaching a lot harder for any trespasser. If they do manage to get away from the external security, the internal security will give them a bad time too. You know those invisible laser triggers in museums? Well, they’re going to commercialize it for homes.
This also means that lockpicking and breaking windows will become redundant methods. At this point, it will take a madman with high hacking skills to be able to break in unnoticed.
Other security countermeasures include password-encrypted vaults, appliances that lock on to the floor, wall or ceiling with specialized holders, and doorbells equipped with a surveillance camera and fingerprint scanner to identify who’s outside.
Does This Mean Everything Should Be Automated?
The thing is, too much of anything is bad. And if everything inside the house is completely full of smart home appliances, it’s going to be complicated. Contrary to what we said about simplicity found in smart homes, it’s the longevity and maintenance that you should be worried about. After all, we still don’t know how long a smart home device takes until it begins to show its age.
There will come a time where it will malfunction and you have to call in a repairman; and since this isn’t just some plumbing problem, it’s certain that the fee will cost almost as much as the guys that repair iPhones.
Sure, you can try to repair them yourself but you’re going to have the same skills and knowledge of a tech wiz to do that.
Speaking of which, smart homes aren’t cheap at all. Since they’re equipped with AI and high-quality parts, you’re going to spend a lot.
The main point here is that smart homes are awesome, but you’ll need to have a sense of adequacy. Put some balance in the home by mixing mechanical and automated items. You can still experience the luxury lifestyle even if your house doesn’t have any of the fancy technology.
After all, the worst that could happen is if cyber terrorism strikes or the sun surges EMP that will disable all tech inside your household.
Don’t Go Full-Auto
Frankly speaking, as technology becomes more advanced and have the ability to do all the heavy lifting for us, we’ll end up dependent on smart home appliances.
What if your robot vacuum stops working? Do you even know how to sweep the floor manually?
What happens if Alexa didn’t remind you of your groceries? Are you going to need a backup handwritten list?
The point is, it’s alright to have your household filled with smart home appliances. Just make sure you have a contingency plan in case they go awry. Also, so you don’t become highly dependent on technology.
Welcome to the Future
As new generations of families rely on smart home appliances, it won’t be soon before long until high-profile tech manufacturers will turn most, if not all equipment into fully-fledged AI-assisted items.
Oh, and don’t worry about any impending mutiny of robots and androids – that kind of stuff will only happen in the distant future.
